Mill on the Alyn, Denbighshire

A friend of the artist James Campbell (1828 - 1893), Newton followed him to London in the late 1860s. Newton specialised in still life pictures and landscapes. The level of detail in his early paintings is almost photographic. This view shows a landscape on the River Alyn in Denbighshire, Wales. After decades of remaining unidentified, the mill is now thought to be Wilderness Mill. This was about a mile south-west of Gresford, close to Gwersyllt. The Mill no longer exists. The painting was exhibited at the Liverpool Academy in 1861. It was bought by the Birkenhead collector George Rae (1817 - 1902), whose descendants sold it to the Walker Art Gallery.